


A Seaside Visit

by Ancalimë (Cymbidia)



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: A boy and his great grand-dad, Elvish Traditions, Family, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, Maglor-centric, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 09:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16385732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cymbidia/pseuds/Ancalim%C3%AB
Summary: Eldarion visits Maglor in his lamentation by the sea to entreat him to sail west. Maglor plays some songs very badly, feels strongly about not getting on that ship, and offers to teach Eldarion about fruit salad.'Eldarion’s stubborn expression made it clear what he thought of that. “Forever is an awfully long time.”“That is because you are mortal. You feel the years differently. Forever will be long for me too, but I shall not suffer the grinding weight of time in the meanwhile. My body might fade, but my spirit was made to last the whole span of the world.”Eldarion rolled his eyes. “I know you are very old,” he said patiently, in that exasperated way young people of all races have of talking with their decrepit elderly relatives, “but I also know that you are sad now, and I do not want you to be sad forever.”'





	A Seaside Visit

**Author's Note:**

> I really love Maglor being Elrond's dad so I have many thoughts about Elrond interacting with Elrond's family and descendants. Eldarion is a mystery to me so I wanted a look at him too, though this is more Maglor centric than I originally anticipated.

Maglor sat on the quay, dipping his toes in the cool water. He was singing to the sea again. His long hair flowed down his back and pooled out on the wooden boards like an inky train. His graceful fingers were barely substantial against the strings of his gilded lute. It was not a particularly Maglor-esque song, nothing grand or tragic or even very beautiful. A drinking song, the kind of crude ditty the Secondborn liked to belt loudly amidst glugs of ale and belches of gas. Maglor was absolutely butchering it with his arrangement, neutering it of vivacity and gusto; replacing its spirit with the sedate twinkling of silver strings and classically perfect enunciation.

“Maglor!” Elros called.

Maglor paused and turned to look at him. Only it was not Elros but Eldarion. Ah. That was right.

“Hello, Eldarion,” Maglor idly resumed his plucking. “What brings you to my quay?”

“The next ship west will soon set sail.”

Eldarion was a youth of nineteen, and already blossoming into the fullness of manhood. Despite the not inconsiderable amount of Elvish blood in his veins, he grew as quickly as the Edain.

Maglor plucked out a few more notes, then said, “I will not sail.”

“It is permitted,” Eldarion insisted. “Mother dreamed of it. Several times. Grandfather pled your case.”

Maglor changed into a minor key and began further disfiguring the drinking song. “I have also dreamed of it,” he said, “but I will not sail, even if I am permitted to do so.”

“Maglor--” Eldarion began to protest, but swallowed down his arguments at the frighteningly fey look on Maglor’s face.

“I will refuse the call,” Maglor said. “That makes me Avari of a sort, does it not? It is permitted for the Quendi to stay, even when they are called. The Valar can ban the Amanyar from returning here, but while we are still upon Middle Earth the choice cannot be made for us. I will not go.”

“You miss grandfather,” Eldarion said in a low voice, his eyes cast to the ground.

Maglor looked up at this youth backlit by the midday sun. The boy had eyes that were strangely bright for a mortal. They were not bright in the manner of the Calaquendi who had witnessed the Trees in blossom, but in the ways of the Moriquendi who gazed upon the stars untainted. He had that legacy within him too.

“I miss your grandfather, yes,” Maglor said, “but I also miss your great-uncle, who is also your father’s forefather. I miss my brothers and my father, who shall not be released from the Halls of Mandos until the world’s breaking. I miss my mother, who shall never see her husband or sons again. I miss my wife, who turned away from my quest. I miss your mother and your father and your sisters, living here by the sea and never seeing them despite the letters. I even miss you, young Eldarion, in between your visits. I miss your grandfather, but that is my lot. I will remain, and I will lament, and I will go on lamenting and remaining until I have faded into a sigh on the wind. That is my choice as much as it is my fate.”

Eldarion’s stubborn expression made it clear what he thought of that. “Forever is an awfully long time.”

“That is because you are mortal. You feel the years differently. Forever will be long for me too, but I shall not suffer the grinding weight of time in the meanwhile. My body might fade, but my spirit was made to last the whole span of the world.”

Eldarion rolled his eyes. “I know you are very old,” he said patiently, in that exasperated way young people of all races have of talking with their decrepit elderly relatives, “but I also know that you are sad now, and I do not want you to be sad forever.”

Maglor thought it was rather more complicated than that. “I will be sad forever even if I sail to Valinor,” Maglor said, and realized that was probably not true. He did not retract his words.

Eldarion made more dubious noises, but he gave up on pressing Maglor. He brought out a packet of letters from his coat for Maglor to read and went to see how his men were progressing with the unloading of the crates. His mother had succeeded in reestablishing glasshouses for wide scale farming, and now Annúminas produced such quantities of tropical fruits that she could send Maglor mangoes and pitayas by the cartload.

Eldarion and his men banged about in the house that Elrond had built for Maglor but which he rarely used except to host the rare guest. Maglor didn’t really need shelter, and he felt best when he was sitting on his quay, singing. The elements touched him little nowadays, and if the grinding ice still traced a path back to Aman, Maglor had few doubts he could have made the journey in summer clothes without feeling the slightest chill.

Maglor continued on singing the drinking song in a hair-raising minor key, his silver voice sour like a funeral dirge or a wordless scream. He plucked the lute sparingly, and had a very good time caterwauling.

Eldarion emerged some time later, looking grimy. “I cleaned up a bit around the house,” he announced. “And I left the stuff indoors. Please at least occasionally check on parts of the house that aren’t the kitchen or your instrument store rooms. I found a family of rats living in the drawing room.”

“Eldarion,” Maglor said with unending patience, improvising a complicated tune on his lute as his singing lulled, “what on Middle Earth would I use a drawing room for? The rats are welcome to it. They have more guests than I do.”

Eldarion mumbled something under his breath. The boy mumbled in the way of Elvish children, who were used to parents with sharp hearing. It was wordless but very communicative. Maglor resisted the urge to cluck and tell him to speak up. He was not Elrond _or_ Elros.

“You know where the guest rooms are,” Maglor said at last. He gave up on his lackadaisical playing. “You are welcome to it, as always.” He set the lute aside and stood. His hair trailed upon the ground even as he was at his full height. A scattering of sand and leaves littered his person, and Maglor shook himself off with the ease of long practice.

“Oh, for-” Eldarion said, exasperated, as he produced a loose toothed comb and made to attack Maglor with it. “How long has it since you last moved from there?”

Maglor chose to bend the truth. “Three days,” he said. It was something closer to a week.

“You know I don’t believe that,” Eldarion said, but did not press the question.

“Come, Eldarion,” Maglor said. “I shall cook for you and your men. Did you bring bread? I ran out.”

“Yes,” Eldarion said dutifully. “Mother made it herself.” He did not really understand the Elvish insistence on dividing the cooking for men and the bread-making for women. The Edain used to emulate this division, the way they emulated many Elvish customs, but that had fallen by the wayside in the intervening years. Nevertheless, Maglor would not bake his own bread, would not disturb his sacred memories of Nerdanel’s ovens, the scent of baking clay mingling with the scent of baking bread. There were many memories of that kind which he refused to disturb, but the refusal to make bread was perhaps the least convenient. No one was inconvenienced if Maglor stopped wearing silk or hemp, but everyone who came to visit Maglor had to bring their own loaves. He served a lot of potato based dishes.

Maglor thought of his mother’s bread, but also of Indis’ bread, and of Galadriel who had learned from Indis, and of Arwen who had learned from Galadriel. Then he thought of his father, teaching Maglor and his brothers the recipes that Finwë had passed down, and of grandfather Finwë's look of pleasure as he sampled their first successful attempts.

Maglor asked abruptly, “has your father taught you to cook yet?”

“No,” Eldarion said cautiously. “Well, he has taught me how to cook things on a campfire, but not in a kitchen. Mother said that grandfather taught Father, but Father hasn’t taught me yet.”

Maglor nodded decisively. “I shall teach you now. You are old enough to begin taking the responsibility. You are a prince, and I know that princes of men seldom cook for their own households, but it is important to know nevertheless. And once I have taught you my recipes, your father will teach you his.”

Eldarion looked dubiously at the position of the sun in the sky. It was past its highest, but it was not quite afternoon. “I do not think we shall be able to cook anything in time for lunch,” he objected.

“Have a snack if you get hungry before we are done,” Maglor sat back down, took up his lute, and started to strum.

“What are you doing?” Eldarion demanded, bewildered.

“I am teaching you to cook,” Maglor answered patiently. “And learning to cook begins with the song of the First Meal.”

“B-breakfast?” Eldarion said, with an expression like he feared Maglor was about to burst into a nursery rhyme about fried eggs.

“No,” Maglor said. “It’s about Imin and Tata and Enel and the first time anyone in all of Arda found sustenance in eating.”

Eldarion made a face. He did not have patience for Elvish fairytales.

“Eldarion,” Maglor said sternly, “I don’t know what you dislike so much about tales of the forefathers. They are perfectly pleasantly individuals, and you are descended from all three of them. Your Great-great-great-great-grandfather Tata did not die eating a poisonous berry for you to ignore his lessons.”

“He died while eating a berry?” Eldarion’s brows shot up into his hair. “I thought Elves were immune to poison.”

“No, we are not” Maglor said, “but you would also know that if you had let me sing the song. Now listen closely, young man, and you can have your dinner afterwards.” He strummed the ancient and familiar tune, and began to sing.

The song went on for a long time. It was really an oral history of the Elves from their very earliest days, and it grew with each retelling. It was not as complex or grand or accurate as most other methods of record keeping, but it existed before the Valar knew of the Elves, and it was one of the few things they had left from those days. The song went on after dinner time, and Maglor was still singing past midnight. Finally, somewhere around dawn on the next day, he finished the recitation. Eldarion had long since sat down and was gnawing at some lembas from his pack as he listened, but he had not fallen asleep or run off to relieve himself even once. Perhaps the Elvish in him wasn’t so deeply buried after all. Eldarion’s men checked in on them somewhere after sunset, but knew to not interrupt Elvish eccentricities.

Maglor concluded his personal additions about spit roasting the spiders of Beleriand and a particularly evocative stanza on the Mannish desserts Elrond and Elros had loved as children. He looked at Eldarion. “I hope you remembered all that,” Maglor said, aware that Men had terrible memory.

“Yes Maglor,” Eldarion said dutifully. His stomach grumbled. “I have committed it all to memory. Even the parts with the caterpillars.”

“Good,” Maglor said in firm approval. “Let us go now to the kitchen.” He stood and strode towards the house. “We will begin with fruit salad.”

“All that singing for _fruit salad_?” Eldarion cried, outraged, but nevertheless hastened to follow. Elves made very good fruit salad.

**Author's Note:**

> This sat in my hard drive for several months. It was, like, the second or third silm fic I ever finished writing. But I always thought the ending dragged on too long, but had no idea how much to cut. I tried? After letting it languish for so long I finally decided to square up and post it anyways, because even though it isn't particularly stunning i have...just...so SO many feelings about Maglor being considered family to Elrond's other kin.


End file.
